I'm curious if those caught committing crimes, especially heinous ones, were generally tried or if mob justice was more common. I'm working off of the assumption that common people accused of crimes were generally afforded a trial (even if only a cursory one), so please let me know if I'm incorrect in that assumption.
I'd also be interested in hearing about the same issue in other legal systems that granted procedural protections to accused criminals.
Guy Gawkes would be the obvious example. In 1605 he was discovered leaving the undercroft(with a slowmatch) of the British Houses of Parliment, inside were barrels of gunpowder placed with the intent to blow up Parliment and kill King James.
He was tortured until he revealed his co-conspiritors, sent to trial with them and then sentenced to executed via being hung, drawn and quartered(though Guy himself got lucky and his neck was snapped before the rest could be carried out)
I've not read up enough on the subject so don't want to speculate on the "fairness" of the trial or british criminal trials in general at the time but it was always told as a pretty open and shut case based on how he was discovered and later managed to point out his co-conspiritors.